U.s. Foreign Policy: How We Got Here

May 12, 1996|A.M ROSENTHAL The New York Times

The United States is the ultimate target of the nations that sponsor international terrorism. Yet the United States has been strengthening the three countries that are the major practitioners and exporters of international terrorism.

This would seem an important development in world affairs and the foreign strategy of the administration. Yet neither public, press nor the foreign affairs professionals appear even aware of the fact that after all the antiterrorist talk the United States is doing at least as much to help three key terrorist nations as damage them. In ascending order: Syria, Iran, China.

The reason for the lack of attention is in how the United States got to this point. It was not through a coherent, planned foreign policy. That might have been debated, at least a little, while it was being conceived or carried out. It was not an overall conspiracy. Journalistic and bureaucratic whistles might have blown. But the administration did it step by step, each time a different way.

On Syria, the United States must share credit with Israel for a casebook example of helping a terrorist nation by shutting up. The Israelis came under world attack for the harshness of their bombing in Lebanon. Israeli bombing was too devastating even for the stomachs of foreigners like myself who felt Israel had to stop Hezbollah rocketing of its villages. The United States was denounced for standing by Israel.

But both countries bit their tongues about an essential truth - Syria's role in lighting the Lebanon fire again. Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel told the world that there were two military commands in Lebanon - the Hezbollah's and the Lebanese government's. Not so; Israel and the United States knew that the rocketing of Israeli villages from Lebanon could not have taken place without the real military command in Lebanon - the Syrian occupation forces. Both countries also zippered themselves silent about the Palestinian terrorist camps in Syria. Peres would have found it difficult to remind Israelis of the complicity and intentions of the Syria he was courting and offering the Golan Heights. The United States also committed public silence about Syrian terrorism. President Assad, Syria's terrorist in chief, emerged stronger than ever.

Iran - that was expediency, also called too smart by half. The United States agreed last year to look away while Iran shipped weapons through Croatia to the Bosnian Muslims. This was at the time that the United States was urging allies to help contain Iran militarily and politically. It was a surreptitious decision behind the backs of Congress, the United Nations and European allies that had troops in Bosnia. Oh, and one thing more: It helped Iran create a fundamentalist political and intelligence base in Bosnia. Presumably now Washington will ask our allies to contain the new Iranian presence in Europe to the Balkans.

China - the trough complex did it. Communist China began international terrorism a half-century ago with the genocidal occupation of Tibet. Now its power has exploded through the courtesy of foreign trade. For trade, the United States betrayed its pledge to connect tariffs and human rights. Yearly it pours scores of billions of dollars into China, directly swelling the treasuries of the armed forces that carry out terrorism at home and abroad.

China uses that power to sell military nuclear technology to Pakistan, peddle missiles to assorted dictatorships, begin stripping freedom from Hong Kong a year before the official Communist takeover. And in March it sent missiles both into the Strait of Taiwan and the political face of the United States - as carefully calibrated and dangerous an act of international terrorism as possible without actually going to war.

But hold, the United States has had enough. It talks of limiting its help to the world's premier terrorist regime by fining Beijing for violating some American patents. That will show them.

How did the administration, an intelligent group, get here? By having more faith in expediency and opportunism than constancy, and by shifting from democratic idealism to Realpolitik and international economic opportunism. For democracies, that is the historic road to empowering their enemies.

Surely helping strengthen terrorist nations was not the intent of the president or his advisers. But it worked out that way, which is what counts.

Readers may write to A.M. Rosenthal at The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036.